Mayawati...

Jaitley’s colleague, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, said Mayawati’s comments reflected nervousness. “Behen Mayawatiji has understood that her gathbandhan is getting nowhere and this is the reason for her worry and sense of insecurity,” she said at a press conference in the capital. On Sunday, Mayawati and Modi targeted each other over a gang rape in Rajasthan’s Alwar, with the Prime Minister saying the UP leader was “shedding crocodile tears” and asking why she did not withdraw support to the Congress government in the state. She hit back with allegations that people, especially Dalits, were in greater danger since the Modi government came to power.

“I have come to know that in the BJP, women leaders get scared when they see their husbands going near PM Modi. They fear that like Modi they might also abandon their wives,” Mayawati separately said while speaking to a news agency in Lucknow on Monday.

The Alwar incident has become a subject of political debate after the husband of a woman raped by four men said that police hushed up the crime until the elections in the constituency had been held. Both leaders initially took aim at the Congress which is in power, before turning their attention towards each other.

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of ignoring facts and deliberately targeting him over the Alwar crime. “PM Modi has personally targeted me on various occasions. Be it in election campaign in UP, MP or Rajasthan,” he said. “When I was in charge of Gujarat, he misled and provoked farmers there against me. He had no moral right to come to Rajasthan and campaign,” he added.